Outotec has been awarded a contract by Tongling Non-Ferrous Metals Group for the design and delivery of a new copper smelter to be built in Jinchang in Anhui province, China. The contract value is approximately EUR 15 million.

Outotec's scope of supply includes licenses for both OutotecŪ Flash Smelting and Kennecott-Outotec Flash Converting technologies, basic engineering and delivery of proprietary equipment for smelting and converting. Chinese Nanchang Engineering Institute is in charge of local engineering and project implementation.

In the first phase, the new plant will have an annual capacity of 200,000 tonnes of copper. The capacity will be expanded to 400,000 tonnes in the second phase with minor adjustments. The new smelter is scheduled to be started up in mid-2012.

"Environmental sustainability is a very important criterion in China today. Tongling chose Flash Smelting combined with Flash Converting, because it is the cleanest copper process available and offers the lowest investment and operating costs together with the most effective emission control", says Pertti Korhonen, CEO of Outotec.